Initial Reactions to 21st Century Skills

Since I read this article last week, it’s been buzzing around in my mind. I can’t seem to get a few of the ideas out of my head.

During this weekend, I was watching a random television show and a new teacher was trying so hard to get the students all on the same level as one another. I don’t mean on a learning level, but on a cultural level. (Mind you, this is television so she was trying some drastic ideas.) The teacher couldn’t do it and the other older teachers were making fun of her. She was frustrated, but her mentor sat her down at told her plainly: “This is public school. The only thing these kids wonder about if there’s a McDonald’s in Africa.” While this was supposed to be comedic and the background audience was laughing, I couldn’t help but think that it was true to a degree. While one part of our nation is pushing for a national sense of pride, some Americans can’t help but think that the rest of the world revolves around them. I was guilty of this too until I was taught to think differently and globally, but I didn’t learn this in a public school. So my biggest question has to be how could we possibly teach students about being a global student if they see no connections being made across borders?

While we’re expanding technological devices, we’re losing the genuine human-to-human contact which is needed for all of these 21st century skills. How can a student develop good people skills when a) they don’t make day to day contact with anyone besides the people alike them and b) they only care about themselves?

Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to be a part of a program where I got to Skype with survivors of human trafficking. I could sit face to face (well, through a computer screen) with someone and interview them for a report I was conducting here in Lancaster. As a teacher, I see the importance of making these international connections. I spoke with fellow students across the planet and learned how they were addressing problems in their own local areas. This movement in technology has its perks, we just need to know how to harness it. While I sit here and type a response for this weekly blog, some of you might not even know me by my name. Where’s our human-to-human contact? Maybe I should start video blogging this in the future? If we want to get out into the field with all these 21^st century ideas, I think we better make sure we’ve got them all first.